‘I Is Another’ Review: Claes Bang Plays Himmler’s Masseur in Weighty Meditation on a WWII Footnote

In the compelling German suspense story I Is Another (Ich ist ein Anderer), protean Danish polyglot Claes Bang stars as Felix Kersten, an actual physiotherapist/masseur who claimed he was instrumental in persuading his client Heinrich Himmler to let Jewish prisoners go at the end of World War II but whose account remains disputed to this day. Writer-director Felix Randau finds an economical way to distill the mystery around the attractive but clearly egomaniacal Kersten by putting him in conversation on a train with Valerie Pachner’s fictional East German journalist, a woman with her own shady past.

The combustible onscreen chemistry of Bang (The Northman, Cannes Palme d’Or winner The Square, Apple TV’s Bad Sisters) and Pachner (Mata Hari in The King’s Man) represents a major selling point for this sly study of deception and delusion, one that feels eerily relevant in these “post-truth” times. Premiering in Locarno’s Piazza Grande, I Is Another could stretch its legs commercially with niche distributors beyond Germany.

I Is Another

The Bottom Line

Truth is elusive.